sumofan

I just finished it this weekend. I enjoyed it a lot and I really loved the ending. Without spoiling, I can say that the way they did it imo emphasizes what the show was about. I'm hoping for a season 2.

I'm halfway through the series. From what I've seen and read here as an outsider, the keiko parts, the bullying, the brutality etc are genuine enough. Agreed that the basho behaviour is ridiculous. My guess is that they did this to make it -and the political angles- more tangible for a western audience. You and I know the sumo world has a lot of political strife between factions and dohyo, but in true Japanese way it is all very 'polite' and subtle compared to Western rivalries. If they had made that part more realistic, most of the audience would simply not have grasped it. At least that's my idea.

True, perhaps. But I am glad they did. I mean I would expect a series about sumo to cover a healthy amount of sumo, and not just use the stable as a decor for some generic drama series. Otherwise there's no point in watching it.

It's a quote from the movie 'Ronin', a masterpiece with Jean Reno and Robert De Niro. Someone (played by Sean Bean) is pretending to be a SAS operator (UK Special Forces) and the character played by De Niro senses that the person is lying. So he asks him 'What is the color of the boathouse in hereford'. That triggers an argument where Sean Bean is found out as a liar because he doesn't know. After the argument, Jean Reno asks 'what IS the color of the boathouse' and De Niro says 'how should I know?'

The end of an era. To me, he was the spirit of sumo. Not because he was so good, but because he kept trying, fought hard and stayed real.

We need a facepalm smiley... Because that should have been dead obvious.

Hey guys,　I have another question. Btw, if you get annoyed with my questions, just say so and I’ll stop pestering you. :) I understand the difference between te and tari, however, there is something still unclear to me. Or rather, 2 things. The first is this: With the list of stuff the old man does, the te form is used to indicate that the various things belong together: Collecting firewood to sell in the village to make a living. However, the sentence ends with 暮らしを　立て　ていました. Why is the ‘te’ 2 times at the end there? And then the second thing: For the old woman, there is a list of things joined together with tari, which I interpret as just a list of independent things. However, at some point, tari and te are joined together. Would it be correct to conclude that the ‘shitarishite’ concludes the general listing of things, and then joins that list to the household work to mean that she did the household work AND a list of other things? お祖母さんは　畑を耕したり，お掃除したり、川で　洗濯したりして、留守番を　していました

Wow! If only I knew how to put on a mawashi :)

Thanks for your help, all. I am currently trying to translate page 2 of momotaro. As soon as I have that ready, I'll probably want to check if my translation matched the actual text. It's frustrating that 4 lines of text, meant for an audience of 5 year olds, can take so much time. Then again, Japanese people learning Dutch are not having an easy time either. :-)

Hey guys, I have a follow up question. In the first part of the page, the story tells how the old man collects firewood (takagi wo tottekite) and kintamayama said it means something like 'goes and gathers firewood'. Would it be correct to say that even though kuru means 'to come', the Japanese sometimes use it in the same way that we would say 'go and do something'?

Thanks. Now I see. The ki is from kuru, not kiru... You know, this is imo the hardest part about Japanese. Not the kanji or kana. That's just a matter of repetition. What really makes things difficult, is that there is no 1 to 1 relation between words and meaning. In English, Dutch or French, 1 word (1 collection of phonems) means 1 thing. In Japanese, 1 concept has multiple phonems attached to it (unyomi and kunyomi), and 1 phonem (such as to, or ki) can mean multiple concepts. So when you hear spoken Japanese, or read hiragana, it is a big challenge to figure out not only the grammar, but what the phonems probably mean in that particular context.

Hey guys, I've been studying Japanese for some time now, and I have started translating a children's tale in an attempt to read it and get some feeling for the actual language patterns instead of just grammar and kanji. I can make sense of it, but something is puzzling me. The story is about momotaro (which you might know). Anyway, in the beginning some people are introduced, one of which is an old man who gathers firewood to make a living. it says '薪を取ってきてそれを売って暮らしを立てています' which translates to gather firewood to sell at the village to make a living' A Japanese person once wrote that translation for me, but at the moment I can't easily ask him for more explanation. The first thing I did was to figure out which kanji were used (it was written in hiragana) which I think I did correctly. But I have 2 questions 1) the part about gathering firewood uses tottekite which I've had trouble interpreting. The to part means 'to gather', so why is the 'ki' still needed? The only sensible thing I could come up with was that it stems from 'kiru' in which tottekite means 'cut and gather' rather than just cut. Is that correct? 2) if kurasu itself already means 'to make a living', why would the writer use ' kurashi o tate' instead of 'kurashite' I hope my questions are at least understandable. I know what confuses me, but I don't know if I was able to correctly explain it, with my limited grasp of Japanese grammar.

I'm sure that if the kyokai agreed with you, it would be against the rules, or at least frowned upon. Given that the kyokai can complain about the most trivial matters, I'd say 'slapping and elbowing' is just fine. The world of sumo doesn't seem to worry about 'your' opinion of what is or is not suitable for sumo.

I am definitely not looking down on Japan or Japanese people. If I were, I would not be learning Japanese, or learning traditional Japanese jujutsu. Different countries have different peculiarities. And the Japanese people I've interacted with were friendly, helpful, and knowledgeable in their own areas of expertise. It's just that whenever I see something that looks unworldly weird, it often turns out to be from Japan. Like this doritos bag Or this perfume with the scent of freshly washed young boys anus And for the kids: Moderator Notice Per request, further wierdness moved to the wierd thread.